At ballparks throughout the major leagues, it's become as much a part of the batting-practice scene as the maxi-decibel thump-thump of hip-hop and screaming rage of rap metal, mixed with the more romantic crack of maple bats.

Flashing on the scoreboard are the major league leaders in various categories. For years, though, there didn't seem much point for many National League players to even bother checking where they might stand on the offensive lists.

“But,” Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker said, “I looked up there a few days back and thought, 'Man, look at all those NL dudes.' How'd that happen? I was trying to find some reasons myself. All I knew was, it didn't make any sense. Usually, it's the other way around.”

Let us count the ways. Last year ended with 14 of the best 25 hitters in the AL, and the year before, the AL had 16 of the top 25.

But this is sort of what Baker saw on the big screen that recent afternoon: Through Friday's games, 16 of the top 20 hitters in the majors and 26 of the top 35 – including those with the seven highest averages – play with NL clubs.

To this point, of course, Lance Berkman (.387, .773 slugging percentage, 1.240 OPS) of the Houston Astros and Chipper Jones (.415, .684 slugging, 1.172 OPS) of the Atlanta Braves seem to be playing in a whole 'nother league of their own. They're first and third in the almighty OPS category, part of a block of seven NL'ers atop that statistic.

C'mon. Ryan Ludwick? Nate McLouth? Dan Uggla?

The top AL guy, the guy ranked eighth overall in OPS? That would be the Texas Rangers' designated hitter with the familiar name: Milton Bradley.

In absolutely every category you can calculate without a Bill James slide rule and Sandy Alderson's brain – runs, hits, homers, extra-base hits, on-base percentage, slugging percentage – the National League is somehow outhitting the league that replaced its pitcher with an extra hitter. Not that many of today's DHs, mind you, can hit better than Micah Owings.

Ever since adopting the DH, the AL has been identified as the league of boppers, the place where bunting went out with Rod Carew and life was spent waiting for a three-run homer off the bat of a linebacker-sized slugger. Baseball seems to be coming back to the NL, though.

The top seven home-run hitters after almost two full months of 2008 – Berkman, Uggla, Chase Utley, Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Howard, Ryan Braun and Ludwick – are in the NL. Gonzalez's nine road homers are at least as many as the season total of all but seven AL players.

“Maybe the balance of power has shifted,” Baker said. “Maybe the pitching's gotten better in the American League. I don't know. Or maybe it was just a cold spring in the American League.”

Cold in one sense, absolutely. Through Friday, the AL's overall slugging percentage is .397. You have to go back to 1992 – before expansion – to find the last time the power-mad junior circuit's slugging percentage dipped under .400.

“I see some pretty big names missing from the leaders, guys who are either hurt or having down years so far,” Padres manager Bud Black said. Flipping the pages of a major league stats packet, Black said, “A-Rod. Ortiz. Manny. Vlad. Ichiro. Those are some very big names you don't see.”

Five of the eight lowest staff ERAs in baseball belong to the majors-leading Oakland Athletics, the Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians and those upstarts from Tampa Bay. The Indians had four of the five best ERAs in the AL from April 17 to May 23 – Aaron Laffey (1.60), Cliff Lee (1.61), C.C. Sabathia (1.66) and Fausto Carmona (2.27) – but so little pop in their lineup that the best Cleveland could do over that stretch was 17-15.

“In baseball, things are cyclical,” said Padres veteran Tony Clark, who's spent most of his career in the AL. “They talk about the American League's dominance of the All-Star Game, but go back 15, 20 years, the National League was dominant. Same with the World Series. Perhaps – and I say simply perhaps – that's happening with the hitting. It just happens.”

Naturally, the first places some will point to are bandboxes Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, but they can be offset by AL homerports like U.S. Cellular in Chicago and Rangers Ballpark in Texas.

In fact, of the ballparks determined to be playing to the batter's advantage in both hitting and slugging, half or more are homes of American League clubs. Heaven knows Petco Park has been doing its part to keep NL hitters down.

Players are getting smaller, too, with the more stringent testing for performance-enhancing drugs. The total number of home runs across the board are on pace to drop more than 17 percent over just two years ago. But while the AL long has been more dependent on muscle, players in both leagues are being tested the same.